


Split Ends

by kidcarma



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, Both of the ship tags are vague/implied but i tagged them anyway just in case, Despair Era (Dangan Ronpa), Does Kamukura Izuru is Have Feelings?, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Haircuts, M/M, Manipulation Disguised as Flirting, Multi, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24688249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kidcarma/pseuds/kidcarma
Summary: Kamukura can count on one hand the number of times he’s been taken by surprise.This is one of them.
Relationships: Enoshima Junko & Kamukura Izuru, Kamukura Izuru/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 7
Kudos: 137





	1. Slice

**Author's Note:**

> tiktok user oneeyedkingcos made a video w the concept of enoshima cutting kamukura's hair off to that one verse from 'Hallelujah' and i took that idea and put my own spin on it. hope u like!

Kamukura can count on one hand the number of times he’s been taken by surprise. 

And not the sudden, jarring, jolting surprise of a cheap jump scare in a low budget horror film either. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t falter, but notes the few times the way fate diverged in its path and had given him something unexpected. A subtle widening of eyes, the briefest, fleeting respite from boredom when life likes to go out of its way to catch him off guard. 

Those lie in the sudden searing pain of a bullet grazing his cheek, a last ditch gunfire from someone tripping over and sawing themselves in half. In the way someone’s luck manages to stand up to his own, of all things a handbook tucked into a pocket protecting him from death. 

In the way she’s backed him into a corner now. 

Metaphorically, of course. Kamukura doesn’t think that, no matter how she might manage to catch him off guard, she’d ever be able to literally corner him. No, the backing up into the wall is all in the way she grins at him, eyes crinkling and asks him innocently enough to ‘hang back for a few minutes’ while everybody else is filing out of the room. She consults him sometimes, because they’re almost an even match but not quite, and she’ll take that sliver of advantage to further catapult the world into despair. 

So he stays where he is, and when she tacks on the single word ‘alone,’ to her request, he sends Komaeda off pouting with a wave of his hand, back up to their shared room. Gesturing to the door with all eyes and no words and Komaeda has to obey no matter how much it irritates him to no end.   
Servant has never been one to conceal his jealousy. And when the only two people left standing in the room and Him and Her, Kamukura wonders which one he might be jealous of. Her. To have Kamukura’s devoted attention. Or Him. To have Her attention. 

“Look these numbers over for me, will you?” Enoshima grins saccharine as she manifests a stack of papers and dumps them onto the table, in front of where he’s sitting. 

“I presume you went over these yourself already?”

“Uh- duhhh,” she confirms, flexing her fingers out in front of her face to inspect her nails. “You think I’m some kind of freakin’ idiot?” 

He’s tuned her out already, flipping through the pages and running the numbers through his mind. Money estimates, laundering calculations, statistics, charts and trends that approximate how long it’ll take them to capture certain areas- the sheer amount of papers would take a normal person days to get through. But he can manage quickly enough. 

And then she starts her game. 

“Kamukura-senpai is so amazing,” she gushes as she takes a few steps closer, hovering over his shoulder in order to watch him work, none too subtly forcing her cleavage into his face. It’s not a cheap tactic because she _knows_ it doesn’t work in the way it might on others, Kamukura has no trouble keeping his eyes on the papers, keeping the numbers filtering through his head.   
When she does this, it’s followed up by an attempt on his life, if nothing else. And he can’t fault her for chasing that despair. 

“We couldn’t have done this without you, you know,” Enoshima tells him and she drapes herself over his lap, voice dripping like honey and poison, as if he’s not already aware. “It’s all~ thanks to you. I think about it sometimes. The beautiful sound of the reserve course students’ bodies hitting the ground, their screams, their violence and bloodshed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so despairing.”

He hums. She brings a primly manicured hand up to caress his cheek. Red nail digging into the corner of his mouth and tracing up his cheekbone, leaving a burning line. 

“They did it all for me. And for you.” 

The electric tension has built up so thickly in the air, her body tense and so warm that the attempt on his life is coming next, he assumes, because pattern indicates that’s always what she does and she always fails, so he’s not at all worried. He trusts his reflexes. Trusts himself to know what places she might pinpoint which will inflict fatal damage.   
The neck, he realizes, because the hand that had been caressing his face is creeping closer and closer to his hair- she’s going to grab it and tug to exposure his jugular and-

Her hand tightens. His scalp stings. He tilts out of the way to avoid the swing but. The blade misses. Misses his neck entirely. And as the sickening sound of a slice fills the air, and a chunk of dead weight falls from his head, he realizes the blade was destined to miss his neck from the beginning. 

“Wow,” her voice breaks the silence but Kamukura’s veins are running cold like ice as he casts his gaze downward, eyes widening despite himself and he wants to throw her off. Off and across the room and through the wall. 

She’s clutching the bundle of black strands to her chest. A fistful of his hair, now detached from his scalp.   
His hair. 

She cut it. 

She cut it off. 

“I can’t believe that worked,” she speaks again because she never knows how to shut herself up. The sound of the metal blade falling to the ground rings throughout the room. She’s trembling too. 

He would have never willingly let her do that. Not even in the little game they play where they try to temporarily relieve each other of their boredom- Kamukura will steal things from her room in order to set back her plans, Enoshima will do her best at every turn to catch him off guard- but this. She’d never shown any indication she might do this. Not a hint. Not a breath. He'd relied on patterns, predictability and yet he had still failed to see this coming. And she knows it. 

“Your hair was so pretty,” she coos, tilting her head, reaching up with her free hand to run her digits through the choppy section of his hair. “You look so ugly now. Like a doll whose kid got their hands on a pair of craft scissors. Now I have to look at something so hideous and know that I was responsible for it. How despairing.” 

“You can finish the rest of these calculations without me.”

Kamukura stands and when he does, he sends her toppling out of his lap and to the floor, skull hitting the carpet will a dull thud and he’s walking away and then she’s cackling, black strands still clutched in her grasp. Loud and abrasive like she does, tears rolling down her cheeks, caught up in both the pleasure of her victory and in her despair of knowing she’s hurt one of the only people she looks up to.   
It’s invigorating. It’s freeing. 

Kamukura flees the room, one side of his head feeling much more weighed down than the other. 


	2. Grow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Komaeda looks for Kamukura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> be mindful of the updated tags ! i put mild violence but if u think this warrants a 'graphic depictions of violence' warning lmk danganronpa is a violent piece of media so im not really sure where to draw the line

“Where’s Kamukura-kun?”

He never gets an answer. 

It’s not unusual for him to disappear for days, weeks at a time even. So the others see no issue in shrugging Komaeda off when he asks, see no issue in the fact that with every passing day Komaeda is apart from the literal embodiment of hope, he grows more restless. How can they be so calm about not knowing where he is?

Perhaps, Komaeda tells himself, after he’s been given another ‘sorry’ from Tsumiki because he’s asked her again and she still doesn’t know, that he’s being irrational. Or perhaps his classmates are continuing to be so foolish as they are, their attention always on _her_. Their desire to please, to gain approval from _her_ and not _him_. Komaeda can’t fault them, he supposes. He craves her attention too, in that wretched way. 

But something isn’t right. 

Kamukura has at least been offering him the courtesy of letting Komaeda _know_ that he’s going away. Be it a trip, a mission to seek something out- Komaeda’s never entirely sure what Kamukura does when he travels. But more and more lately, Kamukura will give him an indication of _something_. An ‘I will be back,’ or ‘behave while I’m gone.’

Something to keep him compliant. Something for him to hold, cling onto so he doesn’t burst at the seams when Kamukura is away. 

The days melt into each other and time is a meaningless construct as Komaeda does with himself the only things he can do- ask around. Look around. Sit dejectedly on the bed in their shared room, staring at the door like a lost puppy, as though wishing hard enough would bring him back.   
Has hardly eaten. Hardly slept. 

Socked feet carry him down the carpeted hallway of the hotel- maybe he can ask Pekoyama again. She’s smart. Reliable- when he bumps into _her_. 

Well. 'Bumps into' perhaps isn’t the best choice of words. She’s been waiting for him, clearly, eyes keen and arms crossed as she hovers in the doorway. 

“You can’t do anything without him, can you? It’s sad.” 

Komaeda grits his jaw, swallows thickly, reserves to keep walking. 

“Hey,” she says when he doesn’t falter in his path and Komaeda hates that she doesn’t even bother to raise her voice. Because she knows that no matter her volume, the threat in her words will ring clear. “I’m talking to you.”

As if that couldn’t be any more obvious. As if Komaeda hasn’t memorized the tone she uses with him, when she wants to get under his skin by now.   
He keeps his eyes resolutely forward, unwavering, until he crosses her threshold and she disappears from his peripheral. 

She clears her throat. 

“Your little schtick of defiance is like so funny or whatever, but like I actually think you’ll really want to see this.”

_This? Oh? Oh oh oh-_

Komaeda stops mid-step, whipping his head around to face her. He’s not… he’s not really sure what he’s expecting but it’s certainly not this. 

In one hand, she’s got her claws wrapped around a bundle of black hair, cascading from where she’s displaying it proudly with her sharp grin all the way down to the floor. The image is so detached and odd and disorienting that Komaeda feels the wind leave his lungs as he squints, trying to make sense of the fibers that are shining so much like silk while trying to ignore just how dizzy Enoshima’s smile is making him. 

“A cool souvenir, right?” 

It hits him. 

“That could be anyone’s,” Komaeda breathes, a rush of air, trying to convince himself of his disbelief. 

“Maybe,” she acknowledges with a lilt. 

Maybe isn’t good enough though because that leaves the chance that she _isn’t_ lying. That her claws really are curled around a lock of Kamukura’s hair and that she’s done something horribly, awfully terrible in order to get it. That, even though she might just be goading him, the slim possibility that she’s not makes it entirely worth it for the white hot rage to consume him. He doesn’t care if he’s giving her what she wants. He doesn’t care. 

He’s tried to kill her before. Many times in fact. 

She’s only laughed at his attempts, no matter how close they’d come, because even being granted death at the hands of someone so inconsequential is a great despair, in a way. Maybe even the best of them all. But she’s going to go out one day. A blazing, burning display, the quiet hush of a candle being snuffed out, or something in between. And he wants to be the one to do it. 

Komaeda blinks and the long lock of hair is in his unworthy hands now, snatched right out from under her, just like the ground as he lands a sweeping kick at her feet in order to send her toppling, wrapping the hair around her neck as she goes down and pulling taut in order to stop that ugly, _ugly_ laughter. 

She wheezes, any semblance of words choked beyond recognition as they try to escape her. Her nails dig into the exposed skin of his forearms, thrashing. It only makes him pull tighter. 

It feels like hours and days and weeks and at the same time, he knows it can only be seconds, minutes at the most, as the veins in her neck and forehead bulge, redness creeps into her contorted face, the vibrant kind of red only seen in someone being deprived of oxygen for just a little too long. The color fits her. It’s beautiful in that twisted way. 

It feels as though every muscle in his body is tensed, trembling with anger- knowing that this could very well be the last piece of Kamukura he’ll ever get to hold and she’s already defiling it by having the audacity to not be dead already. 

To die strangled by Kamukura’s hair. She doesn’t deserve such a luxury. 

Komaeda spits on her face. 

It’s a thrill to watch her fight for consciousness, every struggle a second closer to watching the life drain from her eyes, too blissed out in her impending demise to even notice the line of saliva trailing down the swell of her cheek. Oh he loves her. He hates her. Has she ripped away the one good thing in his miserable life?

Just as her eyes are starting to roll back into her head, however, Komaeda gets yanked up and off her by the scruff of his shirt collar, the sudden disruption leaving him disoriented. But he’s still burning. Burning to finish her off. 

“Let me go!” his voice is strangled. It sounds far away even in his own ears. Like a stranger. He’s flailing. 

“Calm down.”

Calm down never deescalates. Calm down was only ever made to be met with someone getting angrier.   
Above all the blood rushing in his ears though, it’s the voice that gives the order that knocks all the fight out of him. All the rage. All the fury. Gone. 

“Kamukura-“ Komaeda twists in Kamukura’s grasp, craning his neck to get a glimpse of the other man. He hadn't even heard footsteps.

“You really did quite the number on her.”

Komaeda won’t even spare a glance to where she’s sprawled out on the carpet, half wheezing laughs and gasps and coughs. 

Who cares. Who cares about her. 

“I thought she killed you,” Komaeda’s voice wavers. 

“Do you doubt me that much?”

“No-“ Komaeda gasps, trembling fingers latching onto Kamukura’s suit as the grip on his collar is released and he’s permitted to turn around. He can punish himself later for being so clingy. His eyes are wet. He's crying. He's shameless. “I- I just. I thought you were dead. How else would she have gotten-“

His hair. 

Reality slams into Komaeda again and his eyes fly up, locking onto where he knows something is missing. 

It’s like he’d tried to make it less obvious, with the way Kamukura has his hair parted. But Komaeda reaches up, carding fingers still shaking with the rush of adrenaline through the strands near his scalp, watching the way they shift- the patch that’s shorter than the rest is prominent, and for a moment Komaeda feels an inkling of his anger flood back in but it’s quickly swallowed up by disbelief, and unease. 

“How-“

“She bested me.”

“No-“ As if Komaeda realizes what he’s doing- what he’s touching- without permission, he pulls his hand back. It hangs by his side. “No… That’s not possible. Haha-“ he inhales sharply. “Kamukura shouldn’t joke about that.” 

“I am not joking.” 

“Hey,” Komaeda says, Kamukura’s critical gaze a small comfort, after having been left alone to wander without it for so long. “Where were you? Not that you have to tell me. Not that I have any right to ask, even. You’re allowed to go wherever you want. It’s just-“

Kamukura looks at him blankly. 

“Were you planning to hide away until your hair grew back?” 

Fingers still twisted loosely into Kamukura’s suit with one hand, the other resting at his side in punishment for its earlier disobedience, Komaeda takes in the familiar shapes and lines of the presence he’s come to know so well- ones he feared he might never see again. Ones, he thinks, he’s been taking for granted. That he should have searched harder to find but it’s clear now that Kamukura hadn’t wanted to be found. 

Why had he shown up now, then? What changed?

A hand finds its way to the small of Komaeda’s back, solid and guiding as Kamukura leads him wordlessly down the hall- before she gains enough of her breath back to interrupt their reunion. 

“We could put your hair up in a ponytail,” Komaeda suggests softly, not watching where he’s going, putting one foot in front of the other. It’s no question where he’s looking instead. “I could learn to braid- or maybe we could find some clips. Would you like that, Kamukura?” 

He never gets an answer. But this time, that’s okay. 


End file.
